Intel Ups Speed of Quad-Core Processors

Intel unveiled two low-voltage, 45-nanometer server processors.

The quad-core Xeon L5400 Series chips run at 50 watts — or 12.5 watts per core — but their performance still reaches the 2.5-GHz mark. Intel is making the chips using the 45nm manufacturing process that it first used with its Penryn family of chips, which were unveiled last November.

The new chips deliver the same performance as their predecessors, the Xeon 5400 Series, but use 40% less power, according to a company spokesman.

Energy-efficient processors are gaining more attention as companies increasingly look to go green — in order to save both power and money. For companies with large data centers, the cost of electricity can sap a significant portion of the IT budget.

“There is a class of customer that is looking more to economically- or environmentally-friendly designs,” said Stephen Thorne, a product line manager in Intel’s server platform group. “And there also are customers who are trying to pack as much performance as possible into their data center.”

Thorne noted that there has been a call for energy-efficient processors in blade configurations. “A lot of users have power constraints or physical constraints,” he added. “Say you have a fixed space in Manhattan. You can’t expand the space, but with lower-energy processors, you could pack more servers into a rack because each server is using less power.”

In January, Intel rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc. disclosed that it was picking up speed on delivering its own energy-efficient quad-core chip, the 9100E, which reportedly uses one-third less power than AMD Phenom chips. The 9100E had been slated on in-house AMD road maps to ship in either the second or third quarter. The chip is now on the docket to be released this quarter.

And the clock is quickly ticking down on the first quarter. So if AMD’s new chip is still on track, it should ship this week.

Intel reported that its new Xeon processors have a 50% larger cache than its previous-generation, low-voltage quad-core Xeon processors. They also have 12MB of on-die cache and dedicated 1333-MHz front-side buses.

Thorne said Intel was able to lower the power consumption on the new chips through a combination of using the 45nm manufacturing process, running them at a slightly slower speed and lowering the voltage across all the cores to parse out the reduction.

Vendors supporting the new Xeon chips include Dell, Fujitsu, Hewlett-Packard, Hitachi, IBM and NEC.

Intel also announced that it expects to begin shipping its L5210 dual-core processor, which will boast a 40-watt rating, a clock speed of 3 GHz, a 6MB cache and a 1333-MHz front-side bus.

Nokia, RIM Lead in Phone Innovation: Study

Nokia is the mobile device maker with the best innovation and implementation strategies, followed by Research In Motion (RIM), which produces the popular BlackBerry smartphone, and Samsung, according to a recent analyst report.

The ranking was issued by technology market research firm ABI Research, whose innovation scores for the 10 companies included were based on a handful of factors, including choice of partnerships with cellular carriers, distribution channels, relative cost, hardware scalability, interface customization, handset differentiation, patent portfolio, battery life, handset size, support for third party application developers and operating system source code licenses, among others. ABI’s implementation rankings were based on factors like smartphone shipments, brand equity, the number of handset models available, choice of OS, smartphone market share, smartphone average selling prices, distribution networks, operator relationships, and manufacturing facilities.

Nokia scored the highest in both innovation and implementation.

“Nokia’s commitment to driving smart OS into a wider range of devices, and the success of its N series devices, especially the N95, gives it a huge market presence,” said Stuart Carlaw, ABI research director, in a statement.

Espoo, Finland-based Nokia is also the world’s leading producer of smartphones, and the Symbian operating system (OS) found within the vast majority of Nokia handsets is the most widely used mobile OS, followed by Microsoft’s Windows Mobile and RIM’s BlackBerry OS, respectively, according to Canalys, another technology market research firm.

Nokia may be the global smartphone leader, but in the enterprise space RIM is king with nearly three-quarters of business users, a ChangeWave survey recently found. Palm is RIM’s closest competitor for enterprise smartphone users with 18 percent of the market, followed by Motorola’s nine percent share and Nokia’s seven percent of users, according to the ChangeWave survey.

ABI also predicts that the worldwide market for smartphones will triple over the coming five years from 10 percent of the total handset market in 2007 to 31 percent by 2013.

ABI’s full ranking of the top 10 smartphone vendors is as follows:

1. Nokia
2. RIM
3. Samsung
4. Motorola
5. Sony Ericsson
6. High Tech Corp (HTC)
7. Palm
8. LG
9. Sharp
10. Hewlett-Packard (HP)

HP Shows Off Future Printing Technologies

Hewlett-Packard offered a peek into future printing technologies, introducing a new inkjet printer that prints thousands of pages per minute and ink that retains its shine even when exposed to extreme elements.

HP’s water-based Latex Ink is specially formulated to embed in a surface and become part of a media print, said Stephen Nigro, senior vice president of HP’s graphics and imaging business. HP’s Latex Ink can withstand snow and rain and is useful for large-format media used on billboards and outdoor signs.

The company also launched the Inkjet Web Press printer, which can print up to 2,600 A4-sized color pages a minute at a cost of under US$0.01 per color page, Nigro said.

The products were introduced at an event in Tel Aviv.

The Latex Ink includes a specially created formula, called latex polymer, that provides the print surface its durability and color, according to HP. Water-based ink ejected carries the latex polymer and pigment particles to the surface. The inks are 70 percent water and 30 percent of additives and other inks, HP said. The ink was developed by HP and HP Labs.

Unlaminated outdoor displays using the ink can last up to three years, while unlaminated in-window displays can last up to five years.

The printer cartridge uses recyclable material and the company has developed new recyclable substrates for the ink to make printing environmentally friendly, HP said. Other printing technology for large-format media include UV (ultraviolet) curable ink, which interacts with an ultraviolet light source to create a print.

Avoiding speculation, Nigro said Latex Ink may or may not reach consumers in the future. For now, the ink is targeted at enterprises including companies creating billboards, Nigro said. HP is expected to announce products using the ink technology later this year.

HP also showed the Inkjet Web Press, a printer that prints up to 2,600 A4-sized color pages a minute. The printer will be able to print on pages up to 30 inches (76.2 centimeters) wide, Nigro said. It is targeted at replacing the printed pages coming from traditional offset presses.

A printing job with a traditional offset press takes hours and it’s not possible to print on demand. With a traditional offset press, a machine first creates a physical plate with the image etched on it, which is then sent to print. With the Inkjet Web Press platform, hitting the print button sends the image directly to a printer, making high-volume printing more productive by eliminating analog elements like a plate, Nigro said.

The printer is capable of printing broadsheet newspapers and other documents, he said.

The Inkjet Web Press is a breakthrough product as it is 20 percent faster than any other inkjet printer on the market, said Gilles Biscos, president of Interquest, an analysis firm. The speed and width makes it flexible for many different marketplaces including direct mail and books, he said. HP has been in the inkjet business and its research is trickling into many consumer and enterprise spaces.

The printer is built around the Scalable Printing Technology (SPT) platform, which improves the quality of prints by spraying more ink on pages using thousands of nozzles on a single printhead. SPT is already in use on printers like HP’s Photosmart, Nigro said. HP introduced the Photosmart Minilab ml1000 inkjet printer earlier this year, which can print 4-by-6-inch photos as fast as 1,500 prints per hour.

Both announcements are part of HP’s attempt to create a revenue stream by offering more printer supplies, management tools and services. As printer prices decline, customers will continue to pay for supplies like cartridges and services like digital photo prints, which will ultimately generate larger revenues than printer units shipped, HP executives have said.

HP has about a 1.8 percent share in the pages printed segment, and doubling that, will double HP’s printing revenue, Vyomesh Joshi, executive vice president of HP’s Imaging and Printing Group, said in an speech last week.

In 2009, 53 trillion documents will be printed, of which 9 percent will be digital, Nigro said. Creating digital pages like image files creates new printing opportunities, like ordering bound specialty photobooks online. That is not possible with an analog press as set-up costs could be high, he said.